A variety of coding schemes are available for direct observational assessment of student classroom behavior. These instruments have been used for a number of assessment tasks including screening children in need of further evaluation for emotional and behavior problems, diagnostic assessment of emotional and behavior problems, assessment of…

Positive behavior support (PBS) offers schools a structured approach to address children's behavior from the individual level to the schoolwide level. Professionals are encouraged to include all relevant stakeholders, especially families, in actively planning, implementing, and evaluating the supports provided (Carr et al., 2002). However,…

The study uses an alternating treatment design to evaluate the functional effect of teacher's affect on students' task performance. Tradition in special education holds that teachers should engage students using positive and enthusiastic affect for task presentations and praise. To test this assumption, we compared two affective conditions. Three…

Background: The issue of the views of neighbours of community-based residential supports for people with intellectual disabilities and challenging behaviour has not been examined till date. This study looks at the views of neighbours of two types of community-based residential supports: non-congregate settings where the minority of residents have…

Parental power assertion is traditionally studied in the behavioral domain--discipline triggered by the child's immediate misbehavior--but rarely in the cognitive domain--parent-child discussions of the child's past misbehavior. Maternal power assertion was observed in "do" and "don't" discipline contexts from 14 to 45 months and in the context of…

This study addresses the utility of the resilient, overcontrolled, and undercontrolled personality prototypes for predicting children's and adolescents' problem behaviour in a longitudinal general population sample (N = 491). Both parents and one child participated in the study at two measurement occasions separated by a 3-year interval. The major…

Programs desiring to offer true alternatives for troubled children and youth can focus efforts through a developmental lens. Adults who focus their intervention decisions through beliefs based on healthy social-emotional developmental theory and practice provide a strength-based alternative, a sturdy foundation, and an oasis of hope for youth to…

This article presents an evaluation of the Client Management Classification System (CMC), a method for assessment and differential supervision of offenders that embodies the principle of responsivity. As in prior evaluations of the CMC, probationers whose officers were trained in CMC techniques experienced lower rates of revocation compared with…

Adolescence is a time where individuals face a myriad of physical, cognitive, psychological, and social changes, presenting a time of stress and ambiguity. Experiencing stressful life events during this time introduces yet another challenge for the adolescent to address. The present study tested a reciprocal causation hypothesis. From this…

Rule-breaking behaviour of students is a common disciplinary problem in schools. Employing the constitutive perspective, which posits that every social phenomenon is co-produced by several constitutive units in a COREL (constitutive interrelational) set, this article presents the findings of a qualitative study of the phenomenon. Eleven…

As governors confront the worst state fiscal environment in the past 25 years, long-term prospects for strong economic growth are hampered by an immense underlying problem: the high school dropout crisis. At least one student in five drops out of school, and nearly 5 million 18- to 24-year-olds lack a high school diploma. Annually, dropouts cost…

Concerns about the heightened prevalence of behavior problems among adolescents from low-income families have prompted researchers to understand processes through which economic variables influence functioning within multiple domains. Guided by a stress process framework and social contextual theory, this study examines processes linking perceived…

We are delighted to welcome you to the International Psychological Applications Conference and Trends 2014, taking place in Porto, Portugal, from 4 to 6 of April. Psychology, in our time, offers a large range of scientific fields where it can be applied. The goal of understanding individuals and groups (mental functions and behavioral…

The Juvenile and Adolescent Substance Abuse Prevention Program (JASAP) is a curriculum-based prevention and health promotion program for youth between the ages of 13 to 18 years in Fulton County, Georgia. The program was established in 2007 to promote healthy decision-making skills that would eventually lead to informed choices and decisions…

This article examines data from two different studies concerning issues of social justice, gender and schooling and specifically the practices of secondary teachers, "Mr B", a teacher from a school in Tasmania, Australia, and "Mr C", a teacher from a school in Bedfordshire in the United Kingdom. Both teachers' practices and…